An economic winter is coming

[Glostik91]

To my friends living with me in the United States, I want to sound the alarm. I won't mince words here. I will be very clear. A terrible season is coming. The US dollar will collapse. Prices of everything including food and basic necessities will rise. If you are living in an urban center I strongly recommend you move to a less densely populated area. Many Americans will be enduring extreme difficulties in the coming years, so prepare yourselves. Buy food and store it up now while the season has still not yet turned. Buy gold and especially silver if you have wealth you must save. A harsh winter is ahead, and few Americans are ready and prepared.

[Glostik91]

Consider yourselves warned.

And to my friends in other countries, stay away from dollars and dollar denominated stocks and bonds. The coming season may not affect you as badly, but you can still get frostbite if you are not careful.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of a LORD arrives

Wait, the moon is indeed a big menacing red ball outside (super blood moon) and it's pretty dark and cold here too.

And it will be a glorious day! Glostik. There have been busts before and each and every time, people and societies adapted, some individual prospered while others starved. The problem with your warning is not that it doesn't make sense but it's more like the boy who cried wolf. Too many people have given too many warnings, in my lifetime and before that, about recessions, crisis and immediate collapse of the system. Perhaps it all already happened and everything is just hollowing out inside, slowly evaporating. Of course economy always was about fiat, about emotion and exchange of those emotions. Right now it's the economy of fear and I see you are a productive participant. Yes, the dollar needs you!

[Santiago Odo]

The most logical after death scenario is that the sun will come up tomorrow.

[Santiago Odo]

Glostik, beloved Child of the All, would you please outline your case a bit more?

[Glostik91]

I'm not joking around Diebert. This is serious. I don't cry wolf. If you're invested in the United States, get out now.

And Santiago, this warning is not an opportunity for you to get rich. It's a warning to help protect people from what's going to happen.

[Santiago Odo]

Yes but you have to make some sort of a case.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I'm not joking around Diebert. This is serious. I don't cry wolf. If you're invested in the United States, get out now.

My response, beyond the dramatic tone to mimic yours, was not a joke. It conveyed an important alternative view.

1. The modern economy, including money, is about fiat, meaning at any time the technical debt can be restructured as long as certain interests are, well, secured. It's really a matter of sufficient parties agreeing to the action. There's no reason to see it happen differently now since such linkage is near globally.

2. The most insightful way to see economy beyond the various theories on how to manage it would be to see it as an economy of emotion, perceived needs and wants, desires and fears deeply embedded into the social. This is the ruling factor: the virtual exchange of social passion. And right now fear is a strong commodity and your are behaving like a consumer. On a larger scale this is simply part of the larger exchange, no matter if you want to be the mindless consumer believing nothing will happen or end up buying up gold and silver, or even become a recluse or some political activist. On short term they are, within limits, just another known market movement and also linked to the political processes which also just plays the market more than ever.

It would need more detail perhaps, this thinking is based not just on perception but also on quite a few more complex economical and social theories, not even at the fringes. But why not explain first on what you base your dark outlook? And don't give us simple references unless you explain why these are to be believed over your own word.

[guest_of_logic]

Yes but you have to make some sort of a case.

You want a case? A case?!

Alright, here's your precious case!

Notice anything?

That's right!

The case is shut. It is closed.

Case Closed.

QED.

[Santiago Odo]

Yes, but the monogram is “AB”.

Now, I know that here there is an obvious reference to the alphabet. And we all can see that a necessary “C” is implied. “C” must correspond to “see”, therefore there is ‘something to be seen’ which here means presented, explained.

The reference to the alphabet obviously suggests alpha and omega, beginning and ending, but but there is also the odd bumpers on the case which connotes ‘rough ride’ or ‘difficult passage’.

This is just a superficial analysis, a mere glance. There must be more.

And are you sure the case is empty? I suspect it’s filled with gold and silver ignots, dried meat, and — I hope — some reading material.

Wonderful exposition, Diebert. A postmodern economics!

[guest_of_logic]

[OK, that post was a little too farcical]

[Glostik91]

Yes but you have to make some sort of a case.

But why not explain first on what you base your dark outlook

Go see for yourself. Go visit China, and just look around. Look at how they live and what they do. Talk to expats who have lived there a while and ask them what's changing. And visit the United States and do the same. Talk to people. Look at the economies. And then look at the US debt. 22 trillion gov debt. 20 trillion personal debt. 15 trillion corporate debt. 122 trillion unfunded liabilities. Interest rates are going up. Put the pieces together.

And if you can't put the pieces together, then just believe me. Just believe in me and the work I've done. There is still a decent amount of time, so get yourself protected, and you will make it.

[Santiago Odo]

There is still a decent amount of time

How much time?

[jupiviv]

China's fate is tied to that of the US and the dollar, as well as all the other countries that matter. The dollar is the credit for the global energy/economic system, and a system of credit isn't easily replaced or started. Credit provision requires currency, a national treasury, a lender of last resort, private property and a reliable system of jurisprudence. China (and Russia) have some of these things but not all. Key aspects are "left out" e.g. reliable judicature (=enforceable contracts).

When non-US big countries start printing their own credit the whole world will experience systems collapse unprecedented in human history. Preparation for such eventuality would be pointless if it falls short of building a 100% self-sufficient, large, isolated, close knit community. Even that won't ensure survival because millions of people will radiate from urban/suburban centres in search of food after the just-in-time commerce and transport infrastructures cease functioning. If they don't get you, the local warlords/militias will.

[Glostik91]

It's hard to say, Santiago. The dollar is a pillar of salt that could crumble at any minute. The gov shutdown has nothing to do with the border wall. Neither side wants to take the blame for what's coming, so they 'shut the gov down' and claim the gov shutdown is causing an 'economic slowdown.' It's all a huge farce.

The debt ceiling will be renegotiated in March. People will finally start to wake up and understand just how bad the situation is, that we can't even raise interest rates 3 points without causing a huge recession. The crisis will begin soon after.

If you will not let me be without a date, I'd say be prepared by November of this year at the latest.

I might respond to jupiviv later.

[Santiago Odo]

I cannot see how anyone could arrive at a stance where a solid prediction could be made.

What is more interesting is that we are thrust into situations where we must *speculate*. And when we speculate, we tend to project. And the content of our projections becomes, for me, the interesting topic of analysis.

The reason we speculate is because we know that if we have a story or a view that we believe really describes reality, that we can better navigate it. Sometimes a false narrative serves as much as a 'real' one.

However, I do not think a) we have enough information and b) we exist under information-regimes which by their nature confuse the issue.

I have no tools with which to analyze the catastrophic narrative that you present. It could be a paranoid phantasy, it could be partially true, and it could (like the Millennial "00" scare) fizzle into nothing.

OTOH, if the social and psychological environment continues -- as it seems -- to be infected by social hysteria (the latest being the Covington fracas) it has seemed to me that 'the powers that be' could arrange for some reining-in event. Some kind of an event which sobers up the population. I am not sure if a financial crisis would serve that or exacerbate it.

Psychologically, I think that these types of social-hysterias tend to be omens of inner, psychological events that have ramifications in the real world. But my view is Jungian which is, in its own way, a phantasy-projection!

And because we are all *in the soup* as it were (to one degree or another, some more, some less) I think we have to pay attention to the signs of possession. That is, that we could also become "possessed" by socially transmitted hysteria. Perhaps we already are?

An interesting title is Michael Barkun's A Culture of Conspiracy -- Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. He traces the interjection of mythic content into day-to-day perception and shows how many people are not really *thinking* nor *seeing* their world, but rather projecting their own inner material into it and onto it.

That said, I have to say that at this moment I am one of those people who tends to see the Events of 9/11 as part of grand social manipulation projects. It seems clear to me that everything about the *official narrative* is mostly false. If I take the unofficial narrative as a starting point I must see everything that follows as para-military. But it is even more than that really. If there is some 'planning office' that came up with this, I would be very curious to know what their guiding outline is.

Therefore, we live in a system that manages a false-view for us and feeds it to us. What we see going on is not really what is going on.

Who can read the 'narrative of our present'? It is after all the grandest of hermeneutical puzzles. Yet, we are creatures that must interpret.

[Glostik91]

China's fate is tied to that of the US and the dollar, as well as all the other countries that matter. The dollar is the credit for the global energy/economic system, and a system of credit isn't easily replaced or started. Credit provision requires currency, a national treasury, a lender of last resort, private property and a reliable system of jurisprudence. China (and Russia) have some of these things but not all. Key aspects are "left out" e.g. reliable judicature (=enforceable contracts).

When non-US big countries start printing their own credit the whole world will experience systems collapse unprecedented in human history. Preparation for such eventuality would be pointless if it falls short of building a 100% self-sufficient, large, isolated, close knit community. Even that won't ensure survival because millions of people will radiate from urban/suburban centres in search of food after the just-in-time commerce and transport infrastructures cease functioning. If they don't get you, the local warlords/militias will.

China is tied to the US like a prisoner tied to a ball and chain.
And I'm glad to say that your outlook is too negative.

However, I do not think a) we have enough information

Speak for yourself. And ignore my warning at your own peril.

I have no tools with which to analyze the catastrophic narrative that you present.

Your own two eyes and ears. And if you are blind and deaf, then just believe me when I say what will come.

That said, I have to say that at this moment I am one of those people who tends to see the Events of 9/11 as part of grand social manipulation projects. It seems clear to me that everything about the *official narrative* is mostly false. If I take the unofficial narrative as a starting point I must see everything that follows as para-military. But it is even more than that really. If there is some 'planning office' that came up with this, I would be very curious to know what their guiding outline is.

There are precedents that would agree with you, however I think the official narrative is credible enough. Radical Islam has more reason to attack the United States than one might think.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Go see for yourself. Go visit China, and just look around. Look at how they live and what they do. Talk to expats who have lived there a while and ask them what's changing. And visit the United States and do the same. Talk to people. Look at the economies. And then look at the US debt. 22 trillion gov debt. 20 trillion personal debt. 15 trillion corporate debt. 122 trillion unfunded liabilities. Interest rates are going up. Put the pieces together.

Lots of things are changing and the public debt has been high or rising steeper before. The meaning of this depends on how one calculates the size and growth of the complete economical space and growth. Debts always have been part of the larger credit space and crucial to most capitalist systems. The main question is of course is: how good is the credit and credibility. And that's why I wrote about fiat, it's about the interest of other large parties to maintain it or under which conditionals. And right now there is no reasons to assume anyone will allow larger instabilities any more (even while they should?)>

While I never visited China, and the US only a bit, I know many expats from many areas in the worlds, sort of comes with my job. And I don't see a valid reason to panic about economical systems. There are really more important things, as I tried to tell you, the economical systems only represent other exchanges and needs. They reflect general ideas about the world and our desires. This includes managing emotions inside a population, especially in democracies. And this is why it's good to examine fear & worries too. Who profits from that sentiment on a topic so complex that only a few can make faint predictions on the behavior of the Beast?

And if you can't put the pieces together, then just believe me. Just believe in me and the work I've done. There is still a decent amount of time, so get yourself protected, and you will make it.

Can you be a bit more predictive on what time frame or scale of crisis would validate your warning? Because it's easy to warn for these kind of things (the oldest real trade in the world by far) as by the time it comes to pass or fails to, nobody is there bothering to demand your humble apologies or thank you for the warning with a bouquet of flowers...

[jupiviv]

I see in my heart
Clouds and light dart;
Part quicksilver, part blood on the sea.
When the night is gone
We shall be joined anon,
Like river and swan
I and she.


"Like a dream-lover, the world fades.
One sign remains—a sound."

Can you be a bit more predictive on what time frame or scale of crisis would validate your warning?

"2008 & '11 - >125$/barrel
2013-14 - >$110/barrel
2018 - <$80/barrel"

PS - Yes, this is kind of my thing now.

[Santiago Odo]

You go around bent! bent! bent!

Your ten doors are full of hell,
you smell
like a fleet of scents,
your cracked eyes
don't see the heart,
you haven't an ounce of sense!

Drunk with anger, hunger, sex,
you drown without water.

[Santiago Odo]

[Diebert, we are trying to go more in a lyrical direction. Do you have the same thing but expressed . . . more poetically?]

[jupiviv]

Drunk with anger, hunger, sex,
you drown without water.

"It's not a wild beast,
not a wild beast,
but everyone loves
the meat.
The beast is a whole world—
unimaginable!
Tear open the belly,
no liver or guts.
It's this kind of meat
every minute sold."

[Diebert van Rhijn]

"2008 & '11 - >125$/barrel
2013-14 - >$110/barrel
2018 - <$80/barrel"

PS - Yes, this is kind of my thing now.

Living in a barrel you mean?

There would be some who see that decreasing price as indication of larger supplies on the market with demands not keeping up with the rate. My memory goes back with discussing this topic with the Oil Peak enthusiasts who lined out the coming ten years for me with great details, experts, references to experienced voices in the field and so on. The benefit of being old on the Internet is that it needs a bit more to be persuaded at this stage. And I'm not saying you are trying to persuade or make a case at all.

[jupiviv]

"2008 & '11 - >125$/barrel
2013-14 - >$110/barrel
2018 - <$80/barrel"

PS - Yes, this is kind of my thing now.

Living in a barrel you mean?

There would be some who see that decreasing price as indication of larger supplies on the market with demands not keeping up with the rate. My memory goes back with discussing this topic with the Oil Peak enthusiasts who lined out the coming ten years for me with great details, experts, references to experienced voices in the field and so on. The benefit of being old on the Internet is that it needs a bit more to be persuaded at this stage. And I'm not saying you are trying to persuade or make a case at all.

Those are the prices that triggered crises. The trend is one of declining affordability and rising cost of extraction progressing in tandem. AFAIK the peak oil folk argue from the demand-side, i.e., less demand will make oil very expensive, which in turn will both increase renewables use and help fund the transition via taxes/sales. I guess the case I am making is that industrial civilisation cannot be sustained without cheap oil energy. It gets increasingly difficult to separate innovations from innovators' personality cults; a growing list of caveats are appended to promises of future prosperity.

I present my view just as I have written: I do not have the tools to make a complete analysis. Therefore, I work from partial views. I cobble a view together which, resulting from the information I have, makes sense. I do admit that I have, to a certain degree, come to a general conclusion that this was a para-military operation. But, I hold back from the concretization of that into an absolute declaration. At the least I do say that 'the official narrative' is incomplete.

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzINiPsrBXw"

[Santiago Odo]

Remember that I march followed by the god of fortune and the god of war.

* * *